Monday, December 4, 2017

From the front porch.
I thank the farmer who built our house over a hundred years ago for building it in the middle of the property and not up by the road. It means that once and a while when the creek floods we can't get out, but this is what we get in return. (as usual,click on it for full size)

Thursday, June 15, 2017

This is the third year we've had kestrels in this box by the house. Before we painted & repaired the place they used to nest in a hole some ancient flicker had made in the clap boards. I put this up and they moved right in.

Kestrels are in decline. They are N.America's smallest & most colorful falcons. They eat small animals. Mice, shrews, voles, etc. The adults feed three to four voles/day to each chick and continue feeding them foe a couple of weeks after they leave the nest.. They have four to five chicks per year,

Click to enlarge for best effect.

There were four of them

My old friend Jim Anderson from Bend came by and banded them. Jim was my mentor when I was a teenager and the reason for many of my interests. Ecology, wildlife photography and flying to name a couple.
We got them just as they were ready to leave and missed one as it "flew the coop" that morning.

I replaced them after banding, but Jim's grandson took them out as my hand was to large to fit through the hole with a bird in it. I have plans to add a door to the side of the box as well as a small "bird cam" I picked up from a guy in Oregon City.

.

Lots of photo ops the next day when they flew.

I had time to take one shot of the pair. I looked away and one was gone, but this is my favorite shot.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Two of the barn hives swarmed in the afternoon yesterday. I first saw a small swarm on an apple tree when I got home & started to get ready to collect it when it flew. I think it was a swarm from the hive in the swarm trap that was sitting in the barn, because it wasn't very large, and it looked like they may have even gone back into it as they were all around it. Shortly afterwards Theresa saw a swarm in a wild plum tree where they have landed before. This was considerably larger and because of the reduction of activity today in the Langstroth hive by the barn, it probably came from there. This hive was from a cut out I did on the barn wall last year right after they moved in..

They collected up above the higher ladder first. I didn't get the queen and they left the box and reformed lower down to the right.

Dropped a few on the way down.

I carried it down and shook them into the box. This time I got the queen inside and the rest followed.

I then moved the hive about a half mile away so that the workers wouldn't be tempted to drift back to the original hive. In a couple of weeks I may bring it back. There were a lot of bees. When I lifted the inner cover to add several frames, it was pretty heavy.